Baby won’t sleep

My baby is 8 months old and she’s always been a bad sleeper. She goes through phases of sleeping well and just waking up once at night but most of the time she’s up 2 or 3 times which doesn’t sound bad but she’s awake between 1-4 hours each time. Or she wakes up every half an hour.

We’ve always had a good night time routine. Books, bath, milk, bed. And she goes down so easy but she’s always awake after 30 mins.

I’ve been trying to sleep train as we always end up rocking her to sleep (she’s only self soothed a few times) but I can’t stand the crying. It makes me feel physically sick and she gets herself into such a state that I have to take her outside to get her to stop hyperventilating and to actually breathe. And thats both when I’ve done controlled crying and stayed next to her.

She also doesn’t nap. Most of the time she has 1 30 min nap a day, maybe 2 naps of that length. She’s tired all the time and I can spend a whole day trying to get her to nap. She also scratches and rubs her head when she’s tired or falling asleep.

I just don’t know what to do anymore. I am so tired. It seems to be one thing after another with my little one and I just don’t even know if it is just hard or if I’m just not coping.

Anyone else been in this situation? What did you do to change it? Looking for some help 😔